Venom

by Alan Scholefield

  Dendroaspis Polylepis had been curled around the asbestos flue-pipe, seeking to absorb every therm of heat remaining in it. The cellar had been growing colder and colder. She had been drugged by the freezing air, unable to rouse herself properly even when Bulloch had begun to force the door in the wall. But then had come the tremendous reverberations of the gunfire, the crashing body, the dangerous movement of shapes, the smell of humans–all her sensors were flashing danger signals to her brain. A mixture of aggression and fear warmed her muscles. Stiffly at first, then with the lubricity of flowing oil, she uncoiled herself from the flue pipe and launched her shining black body into the centre of the room. It was her shadow thrown upon the wall by the light which Howard first saw.

  “Over there!” Howard shouted.

  Bulloch saw it at the same moment. He fired wildly at the snake then leapt back through the door and slammed it shut. Howard fled up the few steps to the cellar door, closed it hurriedly, locked it and leaned back on it for a few precious seconds as the sweat dripped down his crutch and the inside of his thighs.

  In those few seconds the snake also acted. Filled now with the energy born of fear, she fled the cellar. Territory and safety were one in her primitive brain and she did what she had done the first time she had been threatened: she sought the dark safety of the air-ducts. During those brief moments when Bulloch stood on one side of one door and Howard on one side of another, the snake thrust herself up into the open airduct and flowed along the system until her whole body was inside. As she drove upwards, making for the junction where she had earlier lain and where her smell still lingered, her sensors began to pick up, very weakly at first, a slightly higher temperature. She moved along the system in its direction. Then her tongue ‘heard’ faint vibrations. She paused. The vibrations were dangerous, but the heat was life. She moved in the direction of the heat.

  Part VI

  Saturday 5.38 a.m-7.01 a.m.

  “. . . out of nowhere, sir,” Detective Sergeant Glaister was saying apprehensively. “Taxi came up and out she jumps and before we could do a thing she was running towards the house screaming at the top of her lungs.”

  “Gave me the fright of my life,” Bulloch said.

  “Very sorry, sir.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Control room, sir. D’you want to see her now, sir?”

  They were standing at the end of the street and Bulloch was taking off the leggings and the helmet and goggles and handing each piece to Williams the traffic policeman, who accepted the return of his clothing with obvious relief. No, Bulloch thought, he did not want to see her. The last thing in the world he wanted was to see an hysterical woman. She had sent his blood cold with her screaming. But you couldn’t blame her. You come home out of the blue and find your house surrounded by police and no sign of your kid–enough to send a statue into hysterics.

  “Have you given her anything?”

  “I made her some coffee, sir. Borrowed a drop of your rum, sir.” Glaister looked as though he had been caught dipping into the collection plate, but Bulloch was too preoccupied to notice.

  “Shall I bring her to the car?”

  Bulloch thought of the inside of the mobile control unit. People in and out; no privacy. People . . . people . . . Dr Stowe . . . Mr Beale . . . the man in the cellar (who the hell was he?) . . . now Mrs Blanchet . . . the place was crowded with unwanted people . . . complications. He became aware of yet another person: a tall man standing in the street light twenty yards away. He was clutching a brief-case to his chest.

  “Who’s that?”

  Glaister looked round then said, “Office manager, sir. Mr Prothero. He’s brought the money. He’s waiting to see you too, sir.”

  “Let’s have the woman first. And coffee. And tell Rich to bring me some fags.”

  They brought Ruth from the mobile control unit to the car. Her legs were unsteady and she was crying; it was a soft, uncontrollable weeping. It had followed the outburst of wild hysteria which had swept over her when the taxi had pulled up at the end of the cul-de-sac and she had found the house in the midst of a police siege. After the events of the day, after the failure of her two telephone calls, after the growing unease of the return journey, it seemed to have an horrific logic; it was as though all the hours of frustration were building up to this denouement–no, not only hours, but all the months and years of worry about Philip. She had been right to worry; right to cosset him, right to be pessimistic–and everyone else had been wrong. That was the desperate irony that kept the tears squeezing from her eyelids and filled her with such hopeless despair that she wished she was dead. All the energy of that first dash to the house, when she would have smashed through the ground-floor window to get inside and get to Philip if two of the policemen had not restrained her; all that force, that strength to get to her child, had evaporated and now she felt hollow inside.

  They helped her along the road, one man on each side of her, and she was hardly aware that her legs were moving. She seemed disassociated, like a spastic, unable to control her movements, and she wondered whether it was the liquor they had given her. She never drank rum and had no idea how much had been in the coffee. They helped her into the car and someone gave her another cup of coffee. Her gorge rose as she bent to meet the rum smell but this time all she could smell was the coffee.

  “Help me,” she said to Bulloch. She spoke in a dull, hopeless tone. “They’ve got my child.”

  “Yes, I’ll help you. We’ll help each other. But first. . .”

  “They’ve got Philip.”

  “I’m afraid that’s so. What we’ve got–”

  “He’s sick.”

  “Sick?”

  “Sick. For years.” She seemed to be drifting away and Bulloch brought her sharply back.

  “We’ll need your help,” he said.

  “Help. You’ve got to help Philip.”

  “That’s right. Philip. Now tell me. Who was in the house when you left?”

  He dragged it from her little by little. She didn’t understand why he was asking her so many questions. Especially about Dick Howard. Howard . . . a brave man, Michel had called him. If he was brave, how had he let this happen? But this big man was asking if he was one of them; one of who? The . . . she could not even bring herself to think of the word kidnappers . . . the “dirt” the man had called them. Dirt. Yes. But not Howard. Whatever you said about Howard he wasn’t dirty. Not one of them. What was he doing there, the man was asking. Why was he there? Why? Why? Questions. Questions. And all the time Philip was in the house.

  “Excuse me, sir,” a voice said.

  Bulloch wheeled angrily round in his seat. “What the hell is it?”

  A man leant down and spoke through the half-open window. “It’s me, Smith, sir, lab liaison officer.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “It’s about the . . . the exhibit, sir, the one that fell from the house.”

  “All right, Smith, what is it?”

  “Just wanted to show you something, sir.”

  Bulloch opened the door. He did not particularly want to see the finger again but there was nothing he could do about it. Smith held the grubby handkerchief in his hand and opened the folds. In the weak light from the inside of the car it looked ghastly. “Well?” Bulloch said.

  “Don’t know if you noticed the ring, sir.” He held the ring out in his fingers.

  “What about it?”

  “Doesn’t fit, sir.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “There’s no mark, sir. It hasn’t been worn on this finger.” Bulloch’s mind was turning over very slowly. The ring didn’t fit. Or at least it hadn’t been worn on the finger. No mark. Therefore the ring had been placed–

  “What are you doing with my ring?” Ruth said dully.

  “Your ring?”

  “What are you doing with it?”

  Bulloch stared first at the ring and then at Ruth and then back at the ring, finally he handed it ba
ck to Smith. “Give it to the exhibits officer,” he said. “Tell him to take it to Lambeth with the other thing,” he indicated the finger in the handkerchief. “Tell him to tell forensic I want to know if they can say whether it was cut off a live body or a dead one.” There was a pause as the words seemed to hang in the cold misty air. “Get cracking!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A live body or a dead one, Bulloch thought. That was the point. Either Dr Stowe was alive or dead, or . . . it hadn’t come from her at all, for why would she have been wearing Ruth Blanchet’s ring?

  He levered himself out of the car and called over one of the constables. “Look after her,” he said. “Get a doctor if necessary.” He began to pace up and down. A live body or a dead one. He knew of one dead body. The chauffeur. He’d lay odds that he was dead. He’d seen where the bullet hit. Seen the sudden splash of blood over the heart like a red rose opening in time-lapse; then spreading on the white shirt. Couldn’t have been his finger. And it wasn’t the boy’s, that was certain. You could tell a child’s finger. Everyone thought it was Dr Stowe’s. But wasn’t that–

  “Sir.” This time it was Glaister.

  “What?”

  “It’s Mr Prothero, sir. What do we do about him?”

  “Take him to the control room. Sit with him or get someone else to sit with him. Don’t take your eyes off him.”

  Bulloch was hardly aware of Glaister leaving. Or Rich arriving with more coffee and a cigarette. He accepted both without thanks. Then he looked at Rich.

  “Well?” he said. It was a challenge.

  “Well, sir?”

  “You’d have got the money into them hours ago, wouldn’t you, Rich? And they’d have vanished by now and we’d have been looking for them all over bloody London.”

  “It’s only money.”

  “It’s only money, is it? It’s not your bloody money, Rich, that’s why you’re so generous with it.”

  “I don’t see that it matters one way or the other, sir, we’ve still got to give it to them. Doesn’t matter whether it was a few hours ago or now.”

  “Christ, Rich, sometimes I despair of you. By postponing the hand-over we’ve got one of them. The chauffeur. Now there’s only one left.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the chauffeur, sir. I was thinking of the woman and the child.”

  “Don’t get all pious with me, sonny, not before you know the reasons.”

  “Yes, I’d like to know the reasons . . . sir.” There was a hint of angry mockery in Rich’s voice.

  “Thought you might. Smith says the ring doesn’t fit the finger. Mrs Blanchet says it’s her ring. D’you think Dr Stowe pinched it?”

  “Mrs Blanchet’s ring!”

  “No mark on the finger. There’d be a mark, you see. Indentation. But nothing on this one.”

  “Then . . .” Rich groped for the thought. “. . . Then what you’re saying is that it mightn’t be Dr Stowe’s finger.”

  “You’re getting there, Rich.”

  “And if it isn’t hers then it must be what’s-her-name’s, the maid’s, Louise something. She’d stolen the ring.”

  “Right.”

  “You mean they’d mutilate her? I thought she was one of them.”

  “Why not if she was dead?”

  “But why would they kill her?”

  “The snake, Rich. The snake. They said she’d been bitten. We believed them. Then they grabbed Dr Stowe and we thought it had to be a trick. We never thought it might be both.”

  The two men paused, staring at each other but not really seeing, looking inward at their own ideas.

  “Right at the beginning,” Rich said. “That’s when it could have happened. She could have been bitten right at the start when the kid came back with the snake. She might have been dead for hours before Dr Stowe arrived.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “Tell me?” It told him a dozen things.

  “Surely to Christ it tells you one thing!”

  Rich looked puzzled. “I’m not sure what–”

  “Well, it tells me something. It tells me he’s soft.”

  “Soft!” The word came out with enough force to bring Bulloch’s head up sharply. Anger had flared in Rich again. “Soft! It’s still a game to you. It’s still Detective Chief Superintendent William Bulloch v. The Dirt. Aren’t you forgetting that Inspector Nash was killed? That Frenchman’s never going to give way. You think he’s soft because he mutilated the maid instead of Dr Stowe. It was more convenient, that’s all. You don’t say the Nazis went soft when they pretended to the train-loads of Jews that they were just going to have hot showers. It was more convenient, that’s all.”

  Bulloch had never seen Rich like this; had never been spoken to like this before and was not sure how to react. He took refuge in sarcasm. “Lovely, Rich, a really lovely speech.”

  But Rich had gone too far now to stop. “Don’t you see what you’re doing. Even now you’re trying to buy time. To delay. Because you just can’t visualize a situation where he wins and you lose and the woman and the child are caught in the middle. Well, this isn’t an Irish gunman or a Greek-Cypriot willing to die for God and country. There’s a clever bloke in there who’s in it for the cash. He’s out-thought you all along the line and he’s still got a woman and a child in there and when he’s finished cutting Dr Stowe into little pieces he’ll still have the boy and there’s no way–”

  “Stop it! You’re tired. You’re saying things you’ll regret later.”

  Bulloch had dropped his voice and both men were whispering fiercely.

  “The only thing I’ll regret is seeing Dr Stowe’s body or the kid’s body. Because that’s what we’ll see if you go on like this. And then who’ll you get to hold your hand? Or sit with you? Or wipe up after you’ve puked? Because it bloody well won’t be me!”

  They stared at each other in silence. The words had been spoken, no one could take them back. Bulloch turned on his heel and walked down the street a few paces. Rich stood where he was, waiting for the onslaught. But it didn’t come. After a moment Bulloch turned and said, “Get a message to the marksmen. There’s a chance the light may go on in the sitting-room. The boy’s in the bedroom so there’ll only be the two men and the woman in the sitting-room. Tell them they won’t have more than a few seconds but they’re not to fire until they’re absolutely certain. Got it?” Bulloch’s tone was flat.

  “Yes, sir.” Rich had been hot, now he was very cold and shaking slightly. It was as though he had undergone a great catharsis. He told himself that he should be terrified at this moment but found he wasn’t. He turned on his heel and went to deliver the message. As he did so he saw Bulloch’s massive hunched shape moving towards the house. It stood dark and cold in the early morning and from a distance it looked like a stage-set on an empty stage.

  * * *

  Inside the house fear hung in the air like a dirty smell. Howard was afraid; Marion was afraid, and now, and this was new, Jacmel was afraid. Or at least Howard guessed he was. He could not see him clearly, only his feet as he paced up and down, up and down the icy room. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. One . . . two . . .

  three . . . four . . . five . . . Turn. Back and forth like Howard’s leopard in its enclosure in Kenya.

  He and Marion were lying down on the floor, on their stomachs with their hands clasped behind their necks. It was hideously uncomfortable and the muscles in his shoulders were beginning to cramp. He watched Jacmel’s feet move away. Counted to three and then whispered, “Are you all right?”

  Their bodies were almost touching and he felt her move towards him.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Again he felt the slight pressure of her body and realized she was using it to answer for her. The steps came nearer and he lowered his head to the carpet once more. He was lying over the television aerial cable and it bit into his chest. The smell of dust rising from the carpet was suffocating.

  One . .
. two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . stop. The feet were only a matter of inches from his face. Jacmel was standing over him. What was he doing? Staring down at them? Looking across the room into the black of early morning? Making up his mind what he was going to do? He had to do something, hadn’t he? Or was he still in the driving seat? He still had the boy. He still had Marion. And for what he was worth he still had Howard. Would the police try again, or had that been in the nature of a reconnaissance? Would Jacmel force them to act and if he did, by what method? The easiest way would be to show them he wasn’t fooling and for that he might sacrifice one of his counters. The least valuable. The one he would be sacrificing anyway, the one who knew about Shakespeare Close.

  Howard was under no illusions about the Frenchman. After the gunfire in the cellar he had come upstairs in answer to Jacmel’s shouted order to find him and Marion on the landing. Jacmel had forced the barrel of his revolver into her mouth. The slightest movement and the top of her head would dissolve. Howard would never forget the sight of her. Lips pushed forward and rounded like some New Guinea native using a blow-pipe, eyes bulging with terror, blood dripping down her chin where the gun-sight had nicked her lip.

  He had made Howard tell him what had happened, all the while keeping the gun in Marion’s mouth.

  “The shotgun?” Jacmel said.

  “The policeman got it after he had shot the chauffeur.”

  The lie hung in the air. It was safe enough, Howard thought. No one was going back down there to disprove it. Jacmel made him push a heavy Jacobean chest against the cellar door. If the police made a move now they’d have to batter their way in and they were not going to do that, not while the boy was in the house. Not while Jacmel had Marion.

  It had been a piece of pure bad luck that he and Dave had been entering the cellar as the police broke through the wall. They’d have been in there now, perhaps even in the house itself, hidden in rooms, in walk-in wardrobes, awaiting their chance. But then he remembered the snake. Would they really have come in knowing what was loose in the house? Of course, the big policeman had been wearing protective clothing. That made a difference.